Neighborhood News

Written By, bel Reyes and Kindra F. Montgomery-Block
UC Davis School of Education, Center for Community School Partnerhsips
May 24, 2010

Set-up began early Saturday May 22 at 7:30 a.m., with student volunteers folding t-shirts, organizing registration sign-in sheets and setting up signs that would soon direct the Youth Media Forum for Social Change audience members to the registration area.

At 9 a.m. youth and adults made their way through the KCRA Channel 3 doors, just beyond the glass protected visitors desk, and down a hallway to the sign directing youth and adults to Studio B. Once past the dark, heavy curtains, youth and adults were welcomed with music played by DJ Mark West. Cameras positioned throughout the studio were set to capture even the slightly movement or sound, and from above the gleam of lights reflected on the faces filling in one seat at a time until Studio B became a packed house for the May 22, 2010 First Annual Youth Media Forum for Social Change live online premiere!

Kicking off the forum was a Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS) Poets Gyro, with the words I am a 14 year-old soldier. . . inspiring audience members and host and KCRA 3 News Director, Anzio Williams who welcomed everyone to the Youth Media Forum for Social Change. Co-host Kindra Montgomery-Block, Director of Training and Community Relations at the UC Davis School of Education, Center for Community School Partnerships, emphasized the purpose of the forum: to showcase and support a Sacramento Capital Regional effort for youth-led community change through social media. Patsy Eubanks Owens, UCD Associate Professor (Healthy Youth/Healthy Regions) then presented a few words of acknowledgement, closing out the welcome portion of the program.

With all eyes focused on the stage, Kindra and Anzio introduced the first panel of five youth who spoke eloquently about their documentaries: Sheltered, Open Your Eyes Teen Pregnancy, From the Community to the Classroom, Role Models, and Norma Barajas. The panelists responded to questions from the Moderators and the audience who asked questions such as, why did you pick the topic of your documentary and in what ways are you similar to Norma Barajas?

Documentaries were not the only form of youth media showcased at the Youth Media Forum. The second panel showcased youth-led social media resources in the form of Blogs, Google Maps, and an Online Teen Newspaper. The second panel included youth from the West Sacramento Youth Resource Coalition, Sactown Heroes, the author of Stephanies Blog, and the Woodland Coalition for Youth/Yolo Family Resource Center Teen Online Newspaper. Moderator bel Reyes, from the UC Davis School of Education, Center for Community School Partnerships, asked the panelists to speak about their use of media one by one because unlike the documentaries, there was no sound for the Blog, Google Maps, and online Newspaper. Each of the youth spoke passionately about the importance of their media work in their own development and as part of on-going community change efforts. The third panel of youth included Valley High Students Reaching Out (SRO), two Kennedy High School Students, and a member of the Rancho Cordova Community Collaborative for Healthy Children and Families, who showcased their Public Service Announcements and Photo Maps. The panelists responded to questions asked by Moderator Zenae Scott, Acting Director of Sacramento City Unified School District Youth Development Support Services.

Closing the forum was Tuere Anderson, Director of Health Services with Youth Radio. Tueres closing re-emphasized the importance of creating venues and spaces in which youth voice is supported. â€œYouth,â€ she reminded us, are native to technology culture.

The Youth Media Forum for Social Change was rooted in the beliefs of the community partners, all of whom believe as Tuere gracefully articulated that youth share and tell their stories through the use of social media because the communities in which they live impacts their lives, politically, socially, educationally, emotionally, and physically, yet inspires and motivates them in a real way. With the support of community partners UC Davis, Access Sacramento, KCRA Channel 3, Sacramento City Unified School District, and a host of other community organizations, we look forward to planning the Second Annual Youth Media Forum for Social Change!

Joining many other local organizations, the California Endowment supports the NNB project. In a letter from Mary Lou Fulton and Christine Tien, Program managers, they expressed the following assessment.

“Access Sacramento’s Neighborhood News Bureau concept is at the vanguard of a new wave of local journalism initiatives that involve collaboration among residents, community organizations, new media outlets and traditional media to envision, create and distribute content…. In addition to a range of community partners, it is impressive that Access Sacramento counts The Sacramento Bee, KCRA, and SacramentoPress.com among its partners. These partnerships are evidence of the reliability and credibility that Access Sacramento has established in its 25 years of community media work.”

We welcome this ringing endorsement in support of healthy living and lifestyles in our South Sacramento neighborhoods. Watch this column as these partnerships grow new projects. Want to know how you can help? Send your questions and suggestions to postmaster@AccessSacramento.org

May 21st 2010 Sacramento CA: The Sacramento Convention Center was the site of this years Neighborhood Summit. Attended by Sacramento health and service vendors, the summit also featured a presentation from Access Sacramento’s Neighborhood News team, AccessLocal.TV. The presentation included an overview of the campaign by Ron Cooper from Access Sacramento, and Kristian Manoff from Foxyea Web Media. They showcased the new AccessLocal.TV website and WordPress MU interface to a packed conference room, and fielded questions from budding journalists and interested community members. While some in the audience had a lot of questions about the security needs of site with this scope, the majority of the audience wanted to know where to sign up.

Access Sacramento has identified five locations that will host Neighborhood News Bureaus in South Sacramento County. The NNB’s will report their stories using AccessLocal.TV built by Foxyea Web Media and powered by WordPress MU. Along with providing an interface for NNB Reporters, the website also includes the social networking plugin BuddyPress which allows the Reporters and Subscribers to be part of an online community.

Currently in its beta phase, AccessLocal.TV is hoping to build popularity and adoption into the community as an outlet for those voices often overlooked by commercial media.

Country music sensation Carrie Underwood paired with Pedigree presented Happy Tails Pet Sanctuary with a donation of $10,000 on Thursday.

“I’m happy to be raising awareness,” said Underwood. “There are tons of animals waiting to be loved and waiting to love.”

Representative for Pedigree, John Anton, pressed the importance of shelter animal awareness and the Pedigree Facebook campaign; for each person who becomes a fan of Pedigree on facebook one bowl of food will be donated to shelter animals.

“We have 900,000 fans so far, that’s 900,000 bowls of food,” said Anton. “I think we can really help these animals with the Facebook page.”

Underwood has been a long time animal lover with a soft spot for shelter animals.

“I was born with a freakish love for animals and would rescue anything I could find,” said Underwood. “I snuck a 6 week old kitten into my dorm room in college and he is my parent’s cat to this day.”

She is not alone in her efforts, Underwood’s mom and dad both volunteer at their local animal shelter in their hometown of Checotah, Oklahoma.

“I worked at a vet clinic and that was my last ‘real’ job, but it was sad when people would board their animals and never pick them up,” said Underwood. “There was a spaniel named Oreo that I always looked forward to seeing when I went to work.”

According to representatives, Happy Tails will be putting all of the money to food, medical needs and supplies for the animals

“ Shelter animals are the best animals,” said Underwood. “My motto is if I see it and it needs help, I’ll help it.”

On August 29, 2009, the Valley Hi-North Library opened, replacing a smaller library on Mack Road, in Sacramento. As one of the City of Sacramento’s “green buildings”, with special insulation and efficient lighting, air conditioning and heating, the Valley Hi-North Library is one of the five “Neighborhood News Bureau” sites.

It offers several benefits to the public that help it serve this idea of a “Neighborhood News Bureau” including newly-released DVDs and CDs, a large collection of fiction and non-fiction with places to read, magazines, Internet-accessible computers with word processing, a children and teens reading section and self-check out machines. In addition, the Valley Hi-North Library also has a meeting room that accommodates up to 100 people and three study rooms.

Because of these services, the Valley Hi-North Library could be a wonderful tool for those residents wanting to participate in the Neighborhood News website by posting videos or “tweets”. Community residents who do not have Internet access at home, can find this tool available at the library along with various other researching tools.

You are cordially invited to the Doc School Film Festival on Sunday, May 16th. The event will take place at the Benvenuti Performing Arts Center at Natomas Charter High School, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. There is no admission fee and appetizers and drinks will be served.Join the forty Doc School students as they premiere nine short documentaries on local stories and compete for awards. Film topics range from the Sacramento Zoo to the Shriners Hospital for Children; from Folsom Prison to pink-slipped teachers.

The Doc School is an eight-week documentary production program for high school students in partnership with KVIE Public Television. The Documentary Foundation is a local non-proﬁt organization dedicated to the production and support of documentary ﬁlms.

Don’t miss the Doc School Film Festival on May 16th. This is your opportunity to support youth education, our local aspiring filmmakers, and mingle with leaders in the arts community. Enjoy an evening of food and fun fun as you watch Sacramento’s finest high school filmmakers shine a light on local issues. Delicious appetizers will be catered by acclaimed restaurants Aioli Bodega and Hawks.

This is the fifth and concluding article on the NNB project. In articles #1-4, we outlined our efforts to build volunteer based “Neighborhood News Brureaus: (a) using Word Press on-line softare to organize remote digital media content for a new “aggregated” web site – AccessLocal.TV, (b) design on-line community reporter training (including bi-lingual – English/Spanish) & eventually expand to include other languages, (c) start with “brick & mortar” NNB’s in 5 trusted community & teen centers in the racially diverse south County, (d) expand training to grow NNB’s regionally and (e) learn important lessons from the “Tipping Point” – how we can influence 20% of the population to spread an “information epidemic”, impacting our entire community. The key points included the following clarifications:

Why “NNB”? – Why Now?

Why is Access Sacramento Provding Leadership?

How Will NNB Impact and Change Local News Coverage?

Why a New Web Site – AccessLocal.TV?

The Five Neighborhood Partner Organizations in South Sacramento

Orchestrating a “Tipping Point” – Lessons From Malcolm Gladwell

Identifying “Connectors” and “Mavens” and Training the Trainers

Marketing the Idea to Others – Who Might Be Interested?

The “architecture” of AccessLocal.tv uses WordPress, a software platform familiar to many “bloggers”. WordPress MU (Multi User) allows new members to have their own blog, which can be pre-customized and plugin enabled to allow new user content to integrate seamlessly into the existing community. For those familiar with web development lingo, WordPress MU is built on PHP for a scripting language, and MySQL as a database. Java and Javascript are also used to provide interface and backend scripting. Over the next few months, the web site will grow by adding new digital content:

Video Intake: The uploading or recording of new video, available for on-demand viewing at any time, from anywhere in the world.

WordPress MU helps us to organize information submitted by community members using a very “user friendly”, template style, interface. If you are familiar with adding information to Facebook, if you send photos to friends via e-mail, or if you do your banking online, the instructions for adding new digital content to AccessLocal.TV will be easy to learn. These skills number you in the 60% of the general population comfortable with Internet use.

However, if these skills are unfamiliar (about 40% of the general population), we will establish workshops to teach basic skills in cooperation with local computer skills classes. We will seek out grant funds and business support to attract Internet savvy youth leaders, our “connectors”, who will patiently empower “mavens”, our beloved and trusted senior community leaders, to better use social media technologies and add digital information directly to the Access Local.TV web site for others to enjoy. Our goal is increase the “relevancy” of local “news” attracting those in our community who currently do not use the Internet. Professional journalists in short-handed newsrooms, have agreed to use AccessLocal.tv as a source of “leads”, watching for interesting hyper-local news stories to surface and covered in greater depth.

Does this sound interesting to you? Are you involved in a nonprofit community organization with teen and senior members? Can you already envision teen “connectors” and senior “mavens” you want to include?, Are they willing to invest their time telling the many stories within your community? Do you want to update your current “brochure-style” web site with AccessLocal.TV content generated by leaders locally and regionally? Here are several opportunities for you to get involved.

Local Leaders? – Attend the Neighborhood Summit on Friday May 21 at the Convention Center – See the ad below? One of the 21 FREE workshops will be all about the NNB’s. I will present the basic information and answer your questions. Sign-up TODAY online.

Youth Interested in Digital Media? – Plan to attend the FREE “Youth Media Forum For Social Change” in the KCRA Channel 3 studios on Saturday May 22 from 9-Noon. Contact Kindra Montgomery at (530) 752-6090 for registration details. See eleven different youth media projects demonstrated by youth under 21 and sign-up for future training as a social media “connector”.

Nonprofit Organizations? Contact Ron Cooper to discuss upcoming training for your staff and key volunteers. See how simple the process can be for your community to add content online and join the “connected community”.

Grant Writers and Community Organizers? – Contact Access Sacramento today and discuss how the NNB training and information “epidemic” can serve your cause. We are looking for partner organizations to seek out funds in the areas of health planning, youth training, Internet job skills, community organizing, nonprofit marketing, digital media development, and more.

Join Access Sacramento for only $30 per year or $20 per year for seniors and full time students. We are developing member only workshops to teach basic “blogging” skills and once you are ready, receive a “blog” of your own at the AccessLocal.TV site. Contact us by calling (916) 456-8600 #112 or e-mail us at postmaster@AccessSacramento.org

Watch our newsletter for ongoing updates and NNB status reports. Together, we will “make a difference, one voice at a time”.

“The judges reactions are like little kids at Christmas,” said Sacramento and Company’s Melissa Crowley, emcee for the night. “Oh my gosh, it’s amazing. I love watching the chefs brainstorm.”

Hundreds of people came out to the California Auto Museum to eat, drink and raise money for InAlliance, a nonprofit foundation providing employment placement and life and work skills training to people with disabilities.

“The turnout was fantastic, much bigger than last year, it has a better set up and seems to be a lot more fun,” said co-emcee Sacramento and Company’s Guy Farris.

As the chefs competed the crowd was treated to 100 food and wine vendors from around California.

“It’s been fun to watch the live cooking and eat all the chocolate and the cars are cool too,” said first time attendee Jessica Jelich.

A favorite among attendees, Mount Aukum Winery, drew crowds by the dozens.

“I’ve loved talking to all of the people. This has been good exposure for our winery,” said first time vendor, assistant wine maker for Mount Aukum Winery, William Dishman.

The chefs weren’t the only ones receiving awards. The crowd favorites among the vendors received awards as well. In third place Seamas Sweets and Sours took $2,500, Degans Fine Catering took second place and $5,000 and Markstein Beverage Company took the first place prize of $10,000.

After a tense wait the winner of the challenge was Russel Michel of Central Valley Bistro at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento.

Chef Q of Chef Q for hire gracefully took third place and chef instructor for American River College’s culinary arts program, Teresa Urkofsky took second place.

“We came so that we can let the community know that we are here for them,” said Michel. “ InAlliance is a great organization and I want to help those who want to help themselves. Life is too short you have to live for the moment.”

“Community members benefit from the use of this facility because it is accessible, affordable and available.” According to Courtney Black, Public Information Officer for Southgate Recreation and Park District, this is why members of the Florin Creek area benefit from the Florin Creek Community Recreation Center. Teens can safely spend time outside of school at this facility. There are also various camps for youth, such as the Adventure Creek Summer Program and the Champions Science Adventure Camp. In addition, families can visit the Florin Creek Center to enjoy its greenery and spaciousness.

Quinceañeras, weddings, birthdays, retirement parties, summer concerts and business meetings are some of the many events hosted by the Florin Creek Community Recreation Center. The center was renovated in 2009 and accommodates up to 150 people, making it the perfect location for hosting such events.

“News is constantly occurring within the District and there are frequent updates that could be made via written story, video, or Twitter,” says Black. She insists that teens could play a vital role in providing information for the community because they are a big part of what goes on in the Florin Creek area. “The youth who take advantage of the day camps learn valuable skills and are engaged in fun and educational activities.”

Black suggests that one of the most important ways the Florin Creek Community Recreation Center can put to use this idea of a “Neighborhood News” website is by spreading the word on what programs are offered at the center and which events are taking place. Black states, “The Florin Creek Recreation Center could use the idea of an online neighborhood news website to organize and publicize area events and discuss programs being hosted at the facility.”

Like the other five chosen “Neighborhood News Bureau” sites, the Florin Creek Community Recreation Center is doing its job as the gathering point, providing residents of Parkway and Valley Hi, educational programs and facility accommodations.

Outlined in our past two newsletters, I have described (a) our five South Sacramento County partner organizations (profiled each week in this newsletter), (b) key understandings from the “Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell helping us to understand how significant change can be orchestrated in society by understanding how “viral epidemics” spread in a population by influencing a key few individuals who, in turn, impact others, known as the “80/20 principle” (c) insights into the 40% of the general population not currently utilizing the Internet to their full advantage, (d) connecting and explaining the concepts of “connectors” (youth under 35), “mavens” (respected community leaders over 35) and “salespeople” (broadband and cell phone technology companies eager to activate the untapped 40% of the market), and (e) how “hyper-local Neighborhood News” posted to a central web site (AccessLocal.tv) would be a valuable tool to commercial media outlets eager for news leads from communities they can no longer afford to cover with their own reporters. If you missed these articles, go to our web site and click on our newsletter archive www.AccessSacramento.org.

Today, let’s attempt to connect these concepts to Access Sacramento, now celebrating our 25th year in Sacramento County “Giving voice to the thoughts, dreams,opinions, and community events not otherwise seen or heard…”.

In her letter of support for our Knight Foundation “News Challenge” grant application, City Councilperson Bonnie Pannell expressed the feelings of many in South Sacramento County as follows:

“Image is everything….. If we do not define our communities, someone else will and often, not in our favor…. Access Sacramento has a long history… providing community access programs, free of charge, to residents from all walks of life to develop skills, tell their stories, and thereby empowering them and the communities they serve.”

Supervisor Jimmy Yee expressed his support of the project designed “to give voice” to his constituents in District 2 by stating: “Since the investigators and reporters will also be residents of the same community, tolerance and unity within the community will hopefully be encouraged.”

And from Dr. Deborah Travis, President of Cosumnes River College, “This area is challenged at its most fundamental levels. Households are struggling to master English language skills and many live below the poverty line. In an age when information via the Internet is so critical for residents to fully participate in the democratic process, many in this area are caught in the technology gap, and struggle to gain training and resources to fully engage the existing resources that might help them.”

Here are the key steps Access Sacramento is launching in South Sacramento County with the help of our community partners, local leaders, volunteers, and you. We are triggering a “community information epidemic” by following these steps:

Invest in state-of-the-art web site architecture (AccessLocal.tv) permitting use of remote encoding of all digital information, posted to specific individual and neighborhood “blogs”, freshened daily with hyper-local content, and reviewed by local commercial media for “leads”.
Start with five, trusted community organizations, each at the center of diverse communities, and ask each to identify and train, as needed, “connectors” and “mavens” to routinely report about their distinct neighborhoods.

Expect each of the five sites will pose unique challenges and opportunities. Learn from these experiences as the “NNB” project grows and expands.
As content is developed, partner with other media sites to expand distribution. Aggregate all related South County information to the site making AccessLocal.tv compelling and relevant to local residents and others interested in the area.

Beginning with English-Spanish content, continue to reflect the linguistic and cultural diversity of the region and adapt as technology helps us to bridge the challenges of communicating cross-culturally.
Share this new content both on-line, on our cable television channels, and streamed internationally on the Internet – think local, act global – yet remain true the “hyper-local” focus of our content, always informing our participants of where we “live” by inviting their participation through “tweets”, blogs, videos, audio files, music, movies, etc.

Invite broadband and cell phone companies to help us grow awareness of the web site and our unique “locally relevant social media”. In turn, they will increase the market share for their products, now more “relevant” to previously untapped communities and small businesses.

Solicit financial underwriting and support for these training and content development projects by applying for grants and advertising support from the business communities impacted.
Share the lessons learned with other local groups, neighborhoods and community media centers. When successful, we will have “orchestrated” a tipping point in the creation and sharing of online content from neighborhoods and communities throughout Sacramento County.

Why Access Sacramento? Why now? Our Board of Directors realizes that public access community television has served a critical role providing training and production resources to thousands of Sacramento County residents for twenty-five years and counting. However, cable television channels now share attention with newer online content delivered via the Internet. Younger generations prefer these new avenues of communication and we have noted a widening “gap” in the preferences for media information delivery separating different generations. The NNB project attempts to bridge this divide by remaining consistent to our mission to “give voice” to all, yet updated using current Internet technologies. Where there are challenges, so too are there new opportunities for Access Sacramento. Together with your help, we shall bridge the “digital divide”, the “generation gap”, and the growing “void in hyper-local journalism”. Just don’t look down in the process.

Next week – “What have we learned so far?” (part 4 of 5 parts). Stay tuned….

“Asian Resources is a non-profit community based organization established in 1980 dedicated to providing multiple social services needed in our community, empowering everyone we serve to become a vital part of our changing, diverse society.” – Asian Resources Mission Statement

Asian Resources offers many unique programs that make it an excellent Neighborhood News Bureau site. Some of these programs include on-the-job training, re-entry services and youth development. Asian Resources also provides many community services, such as a PG&E care program, citizenship class and homeowner and renter’s assistance. In addition, this nonprofit organization host community events, like their annual Lunar New Year Dinner and Fortune Festival.

Asian Resources has been serving limited English and low-income communities since its establishment. This organization was created to help community members to establish independence. To steer growth of the economy, Asian Resources helps connect people to jobs and employers. It focuses on preparing people for jobs by teaching them certain valuable skills and placing them in jobs that suit them.

There are several ways in Asian Resources could use the idea of an online neighborhood news website. Such a website would be ideal for making the public aware of the many services provided by Asian Resources. Stories about people in the community who have become very successful occupationally because of Asian Resources might also be a way this organization could utilize a neighborhood news website. These services show why Asian Resources is one of the five chosen Neighborhood News Bureau sites.